Step 4: Remove, distort, cast, distort.

Step 5: Show your affections.

You may now embellish the castings you've made in anyway you wish. You can paint them, cut them with sanders, shatter them and glue them together, coa...

So Valentines Day is just a few days from now and you're thinking: "I want to make my lady something special that she'll remember. Something romantic and sweet... I know! I'll make her a shrunken head!"

Ah, you slick fox. You're one smooth man, you know that you can get any lady you want. And this is your lucky day, I have just the instructable for your next catch or your current jog. Here's an easy cost effective way to woo this special lady of yours. Follow me and I'll teach you how to create a shrunken head without having to visit your local morgue, prison, city hall, or anywhere else heads may be rolling.

First, find a willing partner; if you want to give her your head on a plate (think surrounded by red rose petals) you'll need your partner to do some very uncomfortable things to you, so get ready to get close to your friends.

Back in highschool I convinced my willing partner Mike to do this with me, you'll see him below, we helped each other make the other persons face.

Step 1: Get materials. Get secluded. Make the Mold.

You'll pretty much need to be left alone for the next few hours because any interruptions are going to disrupt the process and create for a jibbley mold. Also, you'll look like some kind of freak with a gobliny white face

Steps to make the mold

Now take your moulage and on a low heat setting on your oven heat it up till it liquefies.

Take it off the oven and let it cool down a bit. Only a bit.

Hand your partner a pen and a pencil and two straws. Take a spoon and dab a little bit on his face. If he looks like he's about to cry... put more. You want to put it on in thin layers, so cover the entire face with the first layer, all except the nostrils and ear holes of course.

Wow, wouldn't it be far better and above all, SAFER to use materials actually made for doing lifecasting? I couldn't help but to cringe when I saw the line "Once the initial burn is over ". Also the use of drinking straws is ridiculously unsafe. DO NOT do lifecasting like this.

I am a professional special effects makeup artist, and I can tell you right now that this is not even close to how we do lifecasts. People have DIED from lifecasting like this. This is incredibly stupid.

http://www.theeffectslab.com/facecasting.htm this is sweet! And is very similar, although it is a stronger material. Moulage is a form of alienate (the brown seaweed stuff) that is also water based, and this let's it shrivel up when dried.

It was my fault that the mixture burned, I didn't wait for it to cool after taking it off the fire. I'll add that the heat checking part, a proper temperature that is still usable is 115oF which is warm, but okay for lifecasting. Lastly, their "keep checking to make sure that the nostrils are not blocked by the slumping alginate." is more post check than preventative. I'm sure if someone had a grandparent on an oxygen resirator, the nasal tubes would be a much better idea, I'll see how expencive those are to procure.

I hope this explains and helps you get over your anti-moulage stance and consider using it in your work, it has some neat properties that typical alginates don't. (Shrinking, reuse...).

Well, very simply, we just cast around the nostrils, then after the plaster bandage jacket is cured, and we are ready to lay up the positive, we just block up the holes with more alginate. This is WAY safer, and I get a more accurate cast. Tubes in the nose can cause distortion of the nostrils, and if accidentally bumped can tear the hell out of the nasal passageways leading to severe bleeding. While moulage is akin to alginate, along with it's few benefits come several drawbacks. First and foremost is the heat. Nobody likes having hot paste smeared on their face. Second, is its detail replication ability is significantly less than a good prosthetic grade alginate. It is easily contaminated, so your reusability is right out the door, NEVER use something used on one person's face on another's you can spread all sorts of disease that way and, it's just gross. Additionally, moulage does shrink over time, granted less than alginate, but that has never been a factor for me. The only place i ever have found moulage of any real use is for casting small props and the like where a high degree of detail is not necessary. I'm not meaning to totally trash you or anything, but there are real reasons makeup artists do not work with moulage for lifecasting.

http://www.monstermakers.com is where I get alot of supplies from, because they are local to me, and I save on shipping, but you can probably find cheaper.

There is a material, though I can't for the life of me remember what it is called or where I saw it., that you can cast in your mold, that will set, then shrink to like 25% as it cures. If you want, you can email me directly, and I can give you IM info. My contact info is on my website.

This is a page which has moulage that may be used for lifecasting. It's not toxic, it's active ingredient is a type of seaweed. It just kinda looks gross. Perhaps I over blew the awkwardness/pain a bit in my explanation. Sorry.

Hmm, maybe i need better photo's of the fully shrunken face. It's the one at the top left of the very first picture. All in all, it comes to about 1/4 of the original face, give it a shot if you're interested to see how much water the seaweed molding material (moulage) will lose! -bg

As catchy as the title is, I think maybe you should change the title, as it won't produce a shrunken head. Don't know what you'd call it, but it's rather misleading. Fun project, no doubt, but I think it needs a different title.

Shrunken face? If you want to wrap around the head all you would have to do is get a baldwig, maybe a shower cap would work, and do both sides. Cutting down the middle when it's time for removal. This stuff is easy to cut with a butter knife. Then when it's cast, it'll be a complete head. -bg

Take caution, there's two things you want to watch out for: 1) Suffocation. 2) Voodoo magic curse reversal. It's tricky the first few times you try to embed life into inanimate objects, sometimes you get curse blow back... And that's tragic. _BG

Heh - I like your concept of an appropriate Valentine's present! :-) Any suggestions for a casting material that will actually *shrink*? Maybe something with a significant water content that will dry out over time?

So you mean the opposite method than this one? How about Gak? Remember that stuff, it shrank, fill your mold with gak (borax glue compound) and let it dry out. Never tried it, lemme know what you think